of the Philippines the criminal justice system is - Article 2

In his 21 February 2007 comments on his visit to the
Philippines (see appendix I), UN Special Rapporteur on
extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Professor Philip
Alston, stressed the link between impunity and the absence of
witness protection in the Philippines:
The vital flaw which undermines the utility of much of the judicial system
is the problem of virtual impunity that prevails. This, in turn, is built
upon the rampant problem of witness vulnerability. The present message
is that if you want to preserve your life expectancy, don’t act as a witness
in a criminal prosecution for killing. Witnesses are systematically
intimidated and harassed. In a relatively poor society, in which there is
heavy dependence on community and very limited real geographical
mobility, witnesses are uniquely vulnerable when the forces accused of
killings are all too often those, or are linked to those, who are charged
with ensuring their security. The WPP is impressive—on paper. In practice,
however, it is deeply flawed and would seem only to be truly effective
in a very limited number of cases. The result, as one expert suggested to
me, is that 8 out of 10 strong cases, or 80 per cent fail to move from the
initial investigation to the actual prosecution stage.
Ineffectual and biased prosecutors
Public prosecutors in the Philippines depend upon police
investigators to do their jobs. They do not have a role in the
investigation process itself, and lack the capacity to evaluate
reliably all facts submitted by the police. Investigators give
credence to police findings without due considerations of other
factors, such as allegations of torture or irregularities in
investigation by the accused, as in the case of the 11 teenagers
arrested and tortured in Benguet: despite their insistence that
they were forced to confess under torture to crimes that they did
not commit, and that the evidence against them was fabricated,
the prosecutor persisted with recommending that the case go to
court. The victims’ claims were not taken seriously by the
prosecutor. The court first ruled that the police had arrested the
victims illegally, and stopped short of a judgment on the charges
themselves. The defence then filed a petition for reinvestigation,
which the court approved, and subsequently dismissed the case
for lack of evidence. In the meantime, the lives of the victims
had been put at grave risk while they were kept in jail awaiting
trial. Similarly, when police allegedly attempted to kill Gerardo
Cristobal and then filed frustrated murder and attempted murder
charges against him the same day of the incident the prosecutor
indicted Cristobal in court, knowing full well that the case was
based upon a report prepared and filed by colleagues of the police
he had accused of attacking him. The prosecutor did not inquire
into Cristobal’s claim.
In practice, the burden to disprove fabricated or sloppy police
investigation reports rests upon the accused. Victims of abuse
are treated with cynicism and hostility, as shown by one state
prosecutor in May 2006 who told a newspaper that it is “normal
for accused people to claim [forced confession by] torture”. Even
in cases where allegations of torture are given credence, there
is no law prohibiting and penalising the use of torture in the
“
the present
message is that
if you
want to
preserve
your life
expectancy,
don’t act as
a witness in
a criminal
prosecution for
killing
”
—UN expert
Philip Alston
article 2 • February 2007 Vol. 6, No. 1 17